UK - A record high of almost three in 10 conceptions in England and Wales ended in a legal abortion in 2022, official figures show. The percentage was 29.7% - up from 26.5% a year earlier and 20.8% in 2012, according to the Office For National Statistics (ONS). The figure has generally been increasing for all age groups since 2015, the ONS added. Figures published last year by the government showed the number of abortions in 2022 for women in England and Wales was at a record 251,377. Girls aged under 16 remained the age group with the highest percentage of conceptions leading to abortion, at 61%.

RUSSIA - Just before dawn on November 21, 2024, a fireball streaked across the sky over the Dnieper River. It wasn’t a meteor. It wasn’t a drone. The explosion that followed – precise, deep, and eerily silent on the surface – tore through the massive Yuzhmash defense facility in southeastern Ukraine. Footage of the strike spread within hours, picked apart by open-source analysts and intelligence services alike. But it wasn’t until Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed it that the world had a name for what it had witnessed: Oreshnik – a new kind of Russian ballistic missile.

VATICAN - Zelensky and Leo held talks in Castel Gandolfo, a small Italian hill town near Rome, where the pope is taking a two-week vacation. Pope Leo XIV told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday that the Vatican was willing to host Russia-Ukraine peace talks. The pope, meeting the Ukrainian leader for the second time in his two-month-old papacy, also discussed "the urgent need for a just and lasting peace," the Vatican said in a statement. Russian officials have told Reuters in the past that they did not see the Vatican as a serious venue for talks because it is surrounded by NATO member Italy, which has supported Ukraine. Leo, who has made appealing for peace in world conflicts a major theme of his young papacy, previously met Zelensky at the Vatican on May 18. The pope also held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 4, during which the Vatican said Leo had asked Putin to take concrete steps to end Russia's three-year war on Ukraine.

MIDDLE EAST - Yemen-based terror group use drones to film raid on a vessel bound for Israel in the Red Sea. Houthi terrorists have released a Hollywood-style video showing them capturing and then sinking a large cargo ship in the Red Sea. The high-quality drone footage shows the 200-metre vessel being hit by a large explosion, as well as uniformed gunmen running towards the bridge in the style of a commando raid. Having seized control of the bulk carrier, the gunmen simultaneously detonated multiple charges around the ship’s hull, causing it to sink. The attacks, which demonstrate advanced planning, mark significant escalation of terrorist acts against commercial ships in the Red Sea, following a lull since December last year.

UK - For a country already drowning in debt, it is surely now official – we can’t afford it. It would lower energy costs. It would create hundreds of thousands of “well-paid green jobs”. And it would turn Britain into a global leader in a series of major new industries. For more than a decade, we have been lectured that creating a net zero economy would pay for itself many times over. But hold on. Yesterday, the Office for Budget Responsibility admitted that it would cost £800 billion over the next two decades. Seriously? The blunt truth is this. For a country already drowning in debt, which can’t even save £5 billion a year in welfare reforms, and where taxes have already been pushed to the maximum limits, that is an impossible sum of money. It is surely now official – we can’t afford it. That does not mean we have to abandon the objective of reducing our carbon emissions or combatting climate change. It does, however, mean that we have to scrap the current plan. We have been living in a fantasy world where net zero will pay for itself. The OBR has exposed that as a myth, and a very dangerous one. And one point is surely clear. We should re-work the entire plan before it bankrupts the country.

USA - Forecasters have sounded the alarm for severe storms poised to unleash damaging winds and flash flooding across the Bay, with conditions expected to deteriorate after 7pm and creep towards Delmarva. The risk of tornadoes looms large, especially westward along the I-95 corridor, as volatility in weather patterns escalates. Torrential downpours are forecast, triggering urgent alerts from meteorologists for possible flash floods in low-lying and poor drainage zones. They further instruct: "TAKE COVER NOW! Move to a basement or an interior room on the lowest floor of a sturdy building. Avoid windows. If you are outdoors, in a mobile home, or in a vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris."

BRAZIL - For months, I expected the Rio Reset to unfold quietly: a slow, strategic rollout of an alternative financial network – never a direct challenge to the dollar. What began as a soft-spoken effort to rewire the system ended with loud, coordinated defiance – led by Brazil’s president himself. As the summit wrapped up, Donald Trump posted a warning: 10% tariffs on all BRICS nations if they continued to bypass the dollar.

UK - Britain will be unrecognisable by the end of this century. Unless things change, and change fast, the population of the UK will be permanently transformed by mass immigration. White Britons will become a minority by the year 2063. The foreign-born and their immediate descendants will become a majority by 2079. And nearly one in four people in the UK will be following Islam by the year 2100; this figure would rise to around one in three among under-40s. Many people struggle to make sense of the pace and scale of these changes. They ask how a nation can be transformed this fast without the consent of the governed. But, last week, brand new data from the Office for National Statistics has made it abundantly clear that these trends are already well underway.

DENMARK - Denmark has officially launched its unprecedented military conscription program for women, marking a radical shift in the Nordic nation’s defense policy. As of July 1, all 18-year-old Danish women must register for potential mandatory military service, putting them on equal footing with men in what the government calls "full equality in military service." The new law extends compulsory service from four to eleven months, effectively transforming Denmark into one of only a handful of nations to draft women into combat roles. This controversial policy arrives amid heightened NATO militarization, fueled by escalating tensions with Russia following the Ukraine conflict. The feminist dilemma: Equality means equal obligation. For decades, feminists demanded equality in the workplace, politics, and even combat roles. Denmark’s draft delivers exactly that: equal obligation under threat of punishment. If equality now means mandatory military enrolment, then today’s "progress" is merely yesterday’s tyranny repackaged.

USA - It’s Gov’t Gone Wild! That includes The House, Senate, President and Federal Reserve. The purchasing power of the US Dollar was $1004.4 on 1915-03-01. By 2025-05-01, the purchasing power fell to $31.1, a loss of 97%. Public debt since the last year of GW Bush, Obama/Biden (with a brief hiatus with Trump) rose 317% since January 2009. M2 Money printing grew 210% since January 2009.

USA - The US Navy’s carrier fleet is stretched thinner than it looks on paper. Out of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, only 4 are currently operational. The rest are either docked for repairs, undergoing refueling, or stuck in overhaul cycles that can drag on for years. That’s not a rumor. That’s the July 2025 status confirmed by fleet trackers and Navy dispatches. These ships don’t bounce back quickly. A full overhaul can take 18 to 36 months depending on the condition and backlog. The Navy’s own reports show that half the fleet is unavailable at any given time due to the sheer complexity of keeping these 100,000-ton platforms combat-ready.

USA - As justification for their climate crisis hysteria, liberals keep insisting that average global temperatures have risen, with the most commonly cited figure being a 1.1°C to 1.3°C (2.0°F to 2.3°F) increase since the pre-industrial era (1850–1900). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), however, begins its “reliable” records in 1880 and reports an increase of about 1.1°C (2.0°F) since then. Even NOAA acknowledges the limitations of early data, stating, “Earth’s surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the NOAA record in 1850.” But these claims rest on flawed foundations. Ninety-six percent of US temperature stations fail to meet NOAA’s own siting standards and are often surrounded by development, resulting in inflated readings from the urban heat island effect. Regardless of accusations that “climate deniers” are rejecting science, the implications of these flaws are serious. Trillions of dollars in policy decisions are being based on temperature records in which measurement errors exceed the very climate trends they claim to show.

UK - Solar farms in the UK have been paid to switch off so a surge of sun doesn't overwhelm the grid, research shows. Overseen by Energy Secreatary Ed Miliband, the National Energy System Operator (NESO) has issued switch-off orders since February. Solar operators can claim compensation when forced to switch off by NESO, which manages Britain's power grids. NESO has said such action is required to ensure UK power grids remain stable. The cost of so-called "constraint payments" is added to householders and businesses' energy bills. Such payments apply to wind farms as well. Five solar farms were paid a total of £102,500 to cut output by 3.6 gigawatt hours between February and June this year. Renewables developers should be able to stand on their own feet by now but they are still begging for subsidies and special treatment, such as constraint payments.

UK - The alert will be sent on Sunday September 7 to approximately 87 million mobiles in the UK. An emergency alert will be sent to all mobile phones in the UK to test the country’s preparedness for danger to life. At 3pm on Sunday September 7, the texts will be sent out to approximately 87 million mobile phones in the UK. The alert will coincide with the 85th anniversary of the start of the Blitz, which began on September 7, 1940. During the test, phones will vibrate and make a loud siren sound for about 10 seconds, even if they are set to silent. A message will also appear on phone screens, making it clear the alert is only a test. The Emergency Alerts system is used to warn if there is a danger to life nearby, including extreme weather, and will allow vital information and advice to be sent to people rapidly in an emergency.

YEMEN - The Houthi insurgents of Yemen, possibly the last combat-effective Iranian proxy force in the Middle East, are threatening to continue missile attacks against Israel after a devastating Israeli airstrike on the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah. Israel launched strikes against Houthi port facilities on Sunday after the Houthis attacked a Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier ship called Magic Seas. It was the first Houthi pirate attack against a civilian vessel in the Red Sea this year. The Houthis hit the Magic Seas with small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, missiles, and bomb-laden drone boats. The ship’s armed security team fought back as long as they could, but eventually, the Magic Seas caught fire and began taking on water, forcing the crew to abandon ship. The Houthis have said they intend to “blockade” Israel until it halts military operations in Gaza.